


The Inevitable Mating Flight Fic

by uschickens



Series: Putting the Pern in Supernatural [2]
Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey, Supernatural
Genre: AU, Crossover, Dragons, Dragons didn't make them do it, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-05
Updated: 2010-10-05
Packaged: 2017-10-12 11:09:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/124222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uschickens/pseuds/uschickens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Paloaltoth flew Impalanth was not the first time S'mael and Dean shared sleeping furs. That should be made clear from the very beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Inevitable Mating Flight Fic

The first time Paloaltoth flew Impalanth was not the first time S'mael and Dean shared sleeping furs. (In a figurative sense. Long before Dean had even impressed Impalanth, they had shared furs as younglings.) That should be made clear from the very beginning.

 

Dean was eighteen when Impalanth first rose, and while he was in no way prepared for the intensity of the experience, he was not unfamiliar with the mechanics of the process, in any pairing. John was weyrfolk but holder-bred, and he was shamefacedly grateful when Dean stopped his halting explanation of the possibilities presented to Dean as the rider of a young, assertive green. Instead, John did his best to prepare Dean for what awaited him with his dragon.

"I wish your mother were here," he muttered only once.

They had learned in the previous Turns that it was not dragonkind of whom they needed to be wary, only dragonriders. They were holdless and weyrless, and John intended for them to stay that way. Impalanth barred Hold and Craft to them, and John did not trust the Weyrs, so they kept as low a profile as possible - training to fight Thread, seeking any trace of A'zazel and Lilith's rider, and avoiding the notice of any who would report them to the Weyrs and break their family apart.

While dragons were rarely without their riders, it would have been impossible to shield Impalanth's bright, curious mind from draconic notice forever. John had begun to suspect assistance from an unexpected quarter when Pyreth, Fort's queen and Impalanth's mother, had not raised the Weyr with they first left, and his suspicions were confirmed when Dean began to relate, warily at first, the conversations Impalanth told him she had with nearby dragons. She never remembered the other dragons' names, could not say who they looked to, but she unmistakably received guidance from her own kind. None ever pursued them, and no one gave any indication of knowing them when they stole into the Weyrs from time to time, so John was content with their security so long as Dean and Impalanth were never together within sight of human habitation.

This did not stop Dean from making friends of all sorts wherever they were. By the time Impalanth was full-grown, Dean was acquainted with pretty holder girls, young harper journeymen, even other green riders. When Impalanth first showed signs of getting proddy, her dark green hide deepening to a gleam that was almost black, he asked her what would suit her best.

"I can't take you too close to a Weyr, baby, in case they find me," he said, burying his face in her neck. "But you deserve the best."

She nudged him softly with her snout. _Take me to Benden,_ she said. _There are very nice blues and browns there. They will suit me well._

"We can go to the Hold," he said, brightening. "They're far enough away to keep us both safe, close enough that they will still come to you in droves."

 _I will fly well over the Range. I fly high and fast in the mountain air. They will have to work to catch me._ Her smug tone made Dean laugh.

The queens' clutches had been larger in recent Turns, and they rose more often. John said it was in preparation for the coming Pass, and whatever the cause, the greens had been following suit. With the number of greens rising at any given time, it had become common practice for each rider to find their ease where they could. It would not be questioned that the rider of whichever dragon caught Impalanth could not - or did not - find Dean. Instead, Dean found himself well-placed at Benden Hold, where he found himself in the company of a charming young vintner's daughter on a rest day. If, on their second afternoon together, he was more distracted than usual, he was also more ardent, and the young woman was left with no complaint at all.

Dean was free enough in his affections that Impalanth's regular flights did not cause him overconcern, and dragon and rider were well-suited. They worked together seamlessly, and none of Impalanth's partners betrayed their secret. Things proceeded apace for nearly ten Turns, when they fled Benden with S'mael and Paloaltoth in tow.

 

Samael grew up in his older brother's prodigious shadow in many matters, but weyr life and the freedoms it afforded him came as no shock. When Samael was seventeen, they had stayed on a holding that raised runnerbeasts for nearly a full Turn, and Samael had grown close to the herder's daughter. Samael learned many things from her that summer, not the least of which was how to make a woman sigh with pleasure. ("You've got to learn to make her scream, Sammy," Dean goaded him. "Sighing isn't enough, not if you're _my_ brother.")

The year before, they had stayed in a small holding just outside Fort, and Samael's best friend was a young harper's apprentice with a wicked smile and laughing eyes. They had taught each other a great deal.

While S'mael had known of Jessa since the moment she stepped on the Hatching Grounds, he did not meet her for nearly a full Turn. In that time, he had lived closely with the other weyrlings, learning the difference between rumor and fact about weyr life, as well as exactly how much fact rumor had been based upon. He saw other riders gripped with communion with their dragons during countless flights, and, with many of the other weyrlings, he practiced in good spirits.

He first met Jessa at one of the Hold's Gathers; as a young brown rider, he was given very little cause to mingle with even the youngest of the weyrwomen. But she caught his eyes and smiled at him, then invited him to dance with her. It was not long before she invited him into her furs and, later, her weyr. When he looked at Jessa and found her looking back with a smile in her eyes, he found he did not wish to look elsewhere. In the small hours of the morning, they whispered plans to each other, how Paloaltoth might throw his lot in with the bronzes when the time came, how it wouldn't matter if he didn't, how S'mael would bring her back to their home after Mooreth blooded her kill, how they would be together.

And S'mael was happy.

 

After Jessa's death, S'mael dropped his honorific and returned to the last name she had ever called him, so close to what Dean had called him growing up. Sometimes he would be Sam the holder, or Sam the harper (though Dean knew the words to all the old songs far better than Sam ever would), or Sam the herder, but he never went by S'mael of Benden again. _You are Sam, Paloaltoth's rider, and that is all that matters_ , Paloaltoth told him comfortably. The young brown was distressed by his weyrmate's death, but traveling with Sam and Dean and _that pert little green_ , he mumbled happily once, making Sam snort, troubled him very little. He was with Sam, which was all that mattered to him.

The first time Impalanth rose after Jessa's death, Sam and Dean were leagues apart, Sam determined to seek tracks of their father far on the west coast within High Reaches' domain, while Dean insisted on following their father's latest message to track down signs of a farmer in A'zazel's pocket who might be responsible for the mysterious deaths at harvest time. When Sam reached out to check in with Dean, feeling guilty after his conversation with the smith's daughter who had run away from home, Paloaltoth reported back that Impalanth was, ah, otherwise occupied and could not tell him how Dean was.

Sam immediately begged off his travel plans with Maig and flew Paloaltoth to Dean's last known locale. He found him trapped in the cellar of the farmer in question, well occupied with the farmer's niece and only vaguely aware that they were both in imminent danger of becoming the farmer's latest sacrifices to A'zazel's schemes. In the darkness of the new moon, Sam flew Paloaltoth close enough to scare the farmer's runnerbeast into bolting (remembering well his lessons of his seventeenth summer), then retrieve his brother and his companion. After delivering them to safety - and allowing them to pick up where they had left off - Sam had Paloaltoth retrieve the farmer from where he lay stunned in his own field, then flew him to Telgar. He left the farmer trussed and tagged with a hide that detailed his perfidy, then returned to his brother.

After the brothers were reunited, Sam realized he could no longer deny, at least to himself, two things: his brother was once again - and maybe always had been - the most important person to him in all of Pern, and he was so jealous of the farmer's niece (and the vintner's daughter and the harper's journeyman and B'lel of Ista, don't think Sam didn't recognize him at that Gather two months back) he was almost sick with it.

 

When he had left his family behind for Benden (not Paloaltoth; John never would have made him choose between family and dragon; the problem was the Weyr, not Impression), Sam had known his brother was attractive. Shells, _watchwhers_ knew his brother was attractive. And even if Sam had known that the twist in his gut back then that not only was Dean attractive, he was attractive _to Sam_ , he was too wrapped up in anger and misery and dragon-hunger to acknowledge it.

But three years apart changed things. Changed Sam. He learned he favored his wingmates as much as he did the weyrwomen, even as he favored Jessa above all. He learned not to be afraid of affection, of other people. Growing up, his father and brother had been his entire world, but Benden - and Paloaltoth - changed that.

(If you asked Dean, Benden changed his brother in other ways. Made him taller, made him stronger, made him more confident. Made it so that when they and their dragons bathed together in the mountain lakes, Dean's mouth would go dry. Made it so that Dean had to look away when Sam stripped off his shirts to oil Paloaltoth's hide in the heat of Igen deserts. Made it so that Dean had to find something else to do with his hands when he saw the length of Sam's thigh in riding leathers stretched lean and strong across Paloaltoth's neck. But Dean didn't think about that, not if he could help it, because the most important thing was that he had his brother back.)

Three years also changed hero worship into something else entirely. Sam knew what he liked, and what he liked was _Dean_. At night, Sam curled up with Paloaltoth on the opposite side of the dying fire from Dean and Impalanth. When Paloaltoth's thoughts smoothed out into the quiet pattern of sleep, when he could no longer hear Dean rustling, he would tuck his hand quietly in his trousers, biting his lip and remembering past moments. At first he just remembered the harper's apprentice, the herder's daughter, his wingmates, Jessa, but later he remembered the apprentice's wicked smile, the herder's brash self-confidence, Jessa's steadfast belief in him. He opened his eyes to stare across the fire and remembered all of these things in Dean as well. (Although Jessa filled out her flying leathers in ways Dean never would. He remembered that happily as well.)

 

They probably would have continued indefinitely in such a manner, Sam filled with clutching, desperate want and Dean steadfastly ignoring as much as he could, if they had not traveled east to Nerat after almost two weeks in southern Boll. They missed the reports of black dust falling in the north, just like all the Weyrs. Unlike the Weyrs, they did not have charts to fall back on. They had camped for the night on a rocky scrap of land just beyond the normal range of the Hold.

Not long after dawn, Impalanth and Paloaltoth woke their riders, thoughts heavy with unfocused worry and eyes whirling with urgency. _Something comes_ , Impalanth said, with Paloaltoth echoing her to Sam so closely it was almost like she spoke to both brothers.

 _Something wrong_ , Paloaltoth added, whistling slightly in distress.

Dean kept one hand on Impalanth's shoulder, soothing her, as he wrestled himself back into his flying leathers. "The holders are ranging farther than usual, hmm? Let's grab our klah and then-" He broke off, staring out to the horizon in the east. "Sam?"

"I see it, Dean," Sam said, leaning into Paloaltoth. "I see it." The sight of Thread - he had no doubt as to what it was from the first glimpse of twisting, grey rain that fell against the wind - filled him with a sick sort of dread, along with dizzy adrenaline. His father had been _right_ all these years. It was one thing to know his father was right, to believe in him and the old stories, but it was another thing altogether to _see_ it. He watched it hiss into the ocean in the distance, frozen by the sight.

Impalanth moaned quietly, and her distress snapped them both back into the moment. Dean continued yanking on his flying gear and gathered Impalanth's fighting straps. "Sam, you have to rouse Benden. They'll still let you across the Bowl, and they'll believe Palo."

"And what are you going to do?" Sam asked, already reaching for Paloaltoth's harness.

Dean's grin was fierce. "What dragonriders were meant to do." He opened the sack of firestone they always kept on hand and offered it to Impalanth.

"Alone?" Sam said, trying not to yell. "Dean, you can't! Not by yourself."

"Then hurry up and bring back at least two fighting wings." He tightened the last cinch on Impalanth's harness and crossed over to Sam. "Don't forget to bring me a refill and enough for yourself as well," he said, pressing extra sacks into Sam's hand.

Sam grabbed Dean's wrist and hauled him in with his free hand cradling the back of Dean's head. He kissed Dean, just once, hard and fierce and more than a little bit desperate. Dean was frozen in his arms. "Don't you die on me, Dean. Don't you _dare_ get yourself killed before we get back." He shoved Dean away, towards his dragon, and threw himself on Paloaltoth's back.

"I mean it, Dean!" he called, the wind whipping his words away, just before Paloaltoth took them _between_. They burst out leagues above the Bowl, and Paloaltoth immediately began caroling out their news, sending images of Threadfall to all dragons awake at that hour and waking anyone still abed. While the weyrfolk might have questioned Sam's return and Sam's news, they did not question their dragons, and the entire Weyr mobilized for action. It was easy enough for Sam to slip into the weyrling barracks and fill his sacks without notice.

In the chaos of the first Threadfall in over four hundred years, it was easy enough for Dean to slip onto the edge of one of the green wings. He was no good at flying in formation, barely used to flying in tandem with Sam, but he and Impalanth were as sharp, as fast, as clever as any green that took wing across Pern. They flew high and well, outlasting more than one green wing that day.

After returning to Nerat and delivering more firestone to Dean, Sam fell in line at the far edge of his old wing. Through their dragons, Z'chary registered his surprise and confusion at Sam's presence, as well as burning curiosity and rueful acceptance of Sam's help. "I'm here for you today," Sam whispered to Paloaltoth, knowing he would pass on his words. "If on no other day, I am still here."

Three hours into the Fall, Impalanth finally dropped out, wings quivering with fatigue, and Dean let Sam know that they would meet again at one of their favorite lakes high in the mountains above Ruatha. Nearly two hours later, after Impalanth was well-fed and well-scrubbed, Paloaltoth appeared, strongly favoring his right side as they circled to land. Dean was on his feet and pounding the sand towards Sam, crow of triumph long forgotten.

"Thrice-damned idiot, deadglow fool who never learned to _duck_ ," Dean was yelling as soon as he was close enough to see the line of Threadscore tracing over Sam's cheek and shoulder, with matching burns on Paloaltoth. He grabbed Sam by his good shoulder and shook him, hands twisted in Sam's flying leathers to hide their shaking.

"I'm fine, we're fine," Sam said, near babbling. "We stayed long enough to get patched up and get some numbweed. J'rel panicked and missed a nasty cluster, and we got caught in the backdraft. Paloaltoth was brave and good," Sam's voice took on a croon as he relished his pride in his dragon, "and took us straight _between_ , so it looks worse than it is, I swear."

"Shells, and you yell at _me_ about dying," Dean said, giving Sam one more shake for good measure. He put careful fingers on the singed edges of leather, not touching skin, but Sam shuddered in a breath anyway. He crumpled into Dean, resting their foreheads together and relaxing under Dean's hands.

"I'm fine," Sam said one more time, and this time it was Dean who closed the scant distance between them to catch Sam's mouth with his own. This time, it did not stop with just a kiss. This time, Dean fell to his knees, dragging Sam with him.

Dean scrabbled at Sam's leathers, desperate to reach beneath, to touch Sam's skin, alive and warm and whole. Dean was already shirtless, still fresh from bathing, and Sam kept getting in Dean's way, refusing to stop touching Dean for a moment. They didn't speak except for "there" and "harder" and "oh, _shards_." Dean recognized the noises Sam made late at night when he thought Dean was sleeping, and they made his blood run a thousand times hotter when he heard them with Sam's mouth pressed against his ear, Sam's fingers digging into his hips, Sam's body pressed against him knees to hips, their trousers parted and pushed aside.

Afterwards, they lay together tangled and panting, still heady with the rush of Threadfall and released desire. Sam lay on his back, torn flying jacket pillowed under his head and Dean's head pillowed on his chest. Dean felt Sam take a deeper breath, getting ready to speak, and cut him off.

"Don't you dare say that was a mistake, Sam. Don't you dare." Dean reached around and grabbed his forearm.

Sam huffed a laugh. "I was just going to say we should find food for ourselves as well as our dragons in the near future." Impalanth allowed as she was feeling a wee bit peckish.

 

That was just the first time. Once the threshold between them was crossed, they fell into each other as easily as breathing after that. When Sam had left Benden, their world had narrowed to the two of them, their dragons, and the hunt for A'zazel. Sam had lived and breathed his grief for months, and they had flown together in silence, Impalanth to the left and slightly ahead of Paloaltoth. With Dean by his side and in his furs, Dean always watching his back, Sam was able to look up again, look beyond the next wingbeat, and see a future beyond revenge and anger.

It was another six sevendays before Dean woke up peckish and snarling, finding fault with Sam's hair, the way Sam made klah, the buckles on Impalanth's new harness. Sam snuck a look at his brother's dragon and hid a grin. When Dean paused in his muttering long enough, Sam asked, "Well, then. Will you be going to Fort on your own, or shall we accommodate you here?"

Dean opened his mouth to snap off a reply, but he was interrupted by Paloaltoth nudging him with his snout. He looked at Paloaltoth, looked at Impalanth, and promptly blushed from chest to cheekbone. Sam snickered, but there was a heat in his eyes that made Dean feel flush all over.

"Pack up fast, Sammy-boy. We'd best be at the Hold before sunset, if I'm any judge of things, and I want to get settled first." He tossed their sleeping rolls towards Sam.

Sam grinned. "Are you trying to say we're not enough for you here? I think Paloaltoth's hurt."

 _I'm not_ , Paloaltoth told Sam, but Sam hushed him.

Dean smiled, all mock-condescension. "Paloaltoth is a lovely beast, but he's only one brown. My girl deserves more."

Sam unfolded himself and stalked over to Dean before Dean could blink. He loomed, and Dean backed into Impalanth's side obligingly, canting his hips towards Sam even as he leaned away. Sam looped his fingers in Dean's belt and tugged him even closer. "You do know how tonight is going to end, don't you?" he murmured, bending close to Dean's ear. "Here, Fort, Ista, doesn't matter. There's nowhere she can fly that Paloaltoth won't find her, and no matter how many fly for her, it will be his neck twined with hers in the end." He emphasized his point with a sucking bite to the juncture of jaw and throat, just above Dean's rapid pulse.

Dean met Sam's mouth in a kiss that was all teeth and tongue, then smirked. "Says the rider whose dragon's never flown a mating flight before. Are you sure you're ready for it, kiddo?"

Sam's flush was high and tight on his cheeks. "No one but Paloaltoth is flying Impalanth today," he said. "No one." He was nervous, hands trembling just a bit, but his mouth was sure over Dean's, defying him to say anything about it. Dean didn't particularly want to.

For the first time, they both left their dragons on the edge of Fort Hold's territory. They got a room at a small hostelry near the fields where Impalanth would feed, and after picking up trays of food and wine for their room, they left instructions that they were not to be disturbed until the following day.

(The hostel owner, well recognizing the sight of two riders looking for a little anonymity and privacy, merely smiled and agreed. He'd have laid money that the shorter man's dragon was as green as his eyes and ready to fly at any moment. He appreciated that the two had the foresight to get themselves squared away before they got…distractible. Not all riders that had sought his doorstep had been so considerate.)

It was still early in the afternoon, and Sam took advantage of the brief quiet and an actual bed to steal a nap. Dean, too tightly-strung and tied into Impalanth to relax enough for sleep, twitched and fiddled his way around the room while Sam slept, breathing fast and shallow as he stretched out in the sunlight. Dean had considered going back down to the main room of the hostelry for a drink and a little social interaction, but he imagined Sam's face if he woke to find Dean gone, and Dean stayed put.

Impalanth followed Sam's example and slept in the afternoon sunlight, and Dean could breath a little more freely. He curled up next to Sam and drowsed, neither sleeping nor waking. When the sun edged closer to the horizon, Dean knew that Impalanth would wake soon, and he stirred himself off the bed, careful not to disturb Sam. He retrieved the small flask of oil he kept on hand for this and other, more recreational, purposes, then stripped, neatly and efficiently.

It would be just the two of them in the small room, but Dean believed in proper preparation, and he knew that Sam would not leave him in distress, should some other rider's dragon be faster than Paloaltoth this day. Even if Sam would not consider the possibility, Dean was too pragmatic - and too unaccustomed to getting what he hoped for - to not think through all the various options. He was done with clothing for the evening, and he enjoyed the freedom to be naked without censure.

He took up the flask again and arranged himself against the flimsy excuse for a chair. He breathed deeply and did his best to think quiet, neutral thoughts. He didn't want to wake Impalanth before her time, not before he was ready. He tried to keep his touch disinterested, but he could not help the small noises that escaped him as he worked a second finger inside his body.

His noises woke Sam, and when Sam blinked his eyes open, the first sight that greeted him was Dean twisted around himself, mouth open to breathe as quietly as he could, fingers glistening before he buried them inside himself. Sam watched the muscles in Dean's arm flex and the consequent shudder run through Dean's body. It took him a couple of tries to get his mouth to work properly. "Dean," he said hoarsely, making Dean start with surprise. "Come here."

Sam pulled him onto the bed and stretched him out in the long rays of the late afternoon sun, on the spot still warm from Sam's body. Dean arranged himself and pressed the flask into Sam's hand. "Careful," was all he said, and it was all Sam needed to know to move quietly, clinically, at least as much as he could. They didn't speak much as Sam moved his hands over and inside Dean's body, but by the time Dean panted, "Enough. That's enough for now," Sam's free hand was clenched in the bedclothes, and he had his forehead pressed in the small of Dean's back, clinging to the control he knew he would need later.

Sam had removed his shirt and was pacing the room when Dean sat bolt upright, eyes suddenly distant. "We," he managed, "we go to feed." Sam reached out to Paloaltoth, who was awake and eager.

 _I follow,_ he said. _I will be ready._

Sam murmured reassurances and encouragement in his head, even as he felt the first wave of _needwanttakehave_ spiraling out from his dragon, Dean's dragon, the cluster of blues and browns and even a handful of bronzes poised on the ledge above the feeding ground, all eyes - whirling with lust and urgency - focused on Dean's little green. It wrapped around him, and he welcomed it in, but it was not from him, not a _part_ of him. It was different from what he felt when he looked at Dean fresh from bathing, flying with Impalanth, or even stretched across the bed not a candlemark earlier. He could try and control it, try and ride it out with detatchment and protection (what if someone else was faster, more clever? what if he was left hungry and incomplete while Dean was swept away with satisfaction that was for someone else? what if his touch was merely tolerated, not welcomed?), or he could give in, ride the wave for all it was worth.

He looked again at Dean, hunched over and lips moving silently, fingers flexing and releasing as he reached out to his dragon, made his will her own. Dean's lips drew back from his teeth in a feral grin, and he hissed, "Now!" There was only choice that Sam wanted, and he made it willingly. He flung himself towards his dragon, twining their minds together, and they were ready when Impalanth sprang into flight.

The flight was long and high and good, and afterwards Sam remembered very little of the particulars. He remembered that Impalanth was as clever and strong as her rider, and he and Paloaltoth worked for every wingbeat they gained on her. But they knew her and her rider better than any of the other, anonymous dragons who fought for her favor, and the end was as foreordained as Sam had made it sound that very morning. It was Paloaltoth who slid next to her, enfolding Impalanth in his wings. It was Paloaltoth with whom, after a moment of sly consideration even at the very end, Impalanth consented to twine her neck.

It was that moment, the moment when Impalanth gave her consent and the two dragons began to fall together, when Sam found himself snapped back into his own body, his skin barely enough to hold the lust and triumph of two dragons. He was dizzy with dragon-driven emotion and need, but he was enough himself again to know that he had hands, not wings, the conquest won but not consummated. He found himself much as he had been earlier, his face pressed against Dean's back, Dean on his knees beneath him, satisfaction within reach but still denied.

Dean reached behind himself to clutch at Sam and urge him forward and closer, still mostly lost to his dragon's lust. "Now, do it now!" he snarled, face twisted with need.

Sam grabbed Dean's chin and hauled him in for a kiss, flipping him onto his back while he was distracted. "Dean," he said, lips brushing Dean's mouth as he spoke, even as Dean clawed at his back, desperate for Sam's body inside his own. "Dean, Dean, _Dean_."

"What?" Dean finally snapped, but the vacant look faded from his eyes a little, and this time Sam was sure Dean was looking at _him_ , not just the nearest thrusting body. "What, Sam? What do you want?"

"Just that," Sam said, satisfied. "Just want you here with me in this." He slid his knee under Dean's thigh and nudged his leg higher. He could feel the pulse of their dragons' urgency with each beat of his heart, but now it was as much Sam and Dean as it was Paloaltoth and Impalanth.

"I swear by the First Egg, if you do not hurry up, I will go downstairs and find someone who can move a little faster." Dean's voice was harsh, but his fingers twined in Sam's sweat-damp hair and tugged him close.

Sam took one last breath to be thankful for their long, careful preparation and slid home with one long, smooth twist of his hips, deep inside Dean's body. Dean made a noise high in his throat and clutched Sam even closer. It was exactly the same and so very, very different from any time they had done this before. Sam's skin felt too tight to contain everything - his love for his dragon, his dragon's need, his love and need for Dean. The only thing he could do to relieve the pressure was to move, to move his body in and above and around Dean's, to take Dean in his hands and to urge him along, faster and together, until - wrapped together with Dean - they spilled over together, too full and too much to contain for too long.

Afterwards, they slept, bodies curling into shapes familiar from many nights spent together already. They woke in the night several times, reaching out for each other in the dark, the energy and need from the mating flight still running through their veins, dampening a little more each time they came together. Dean's hips would be marked with the shape of Sam's fingers come morning, and Sam's body bore the imprint of Dean's mouth many times over. Impalanth made Dean needier than usual in the small hours of the morning, and Sam brought him satisfaction with his hands and mouth before moving over him once more.

They finally woke when the sun was high in the sky. The hostelkeeper had lived up to his word, and they had not been disturbed. Both dragons were still sleeping and radiating contentment (or smug satisfaction, if you asked Sam) when Sam and Dean bestirred themselves to seek out clothes and food. Even as they dressed, their hands left each other's bodies only briefly and with reluctance. Sam pulled Dean close, pressing his chest into Dean's back as he curled his head to nose at Dean's ear. Dean permitted the embrace with lazy satiety, rather than pushing Sam away or making a joke of it as he might have done the day before.

"Are you going to make me your weyrmate now?" Dean said, half-joking.

"Don't have a weyr," Sam said, pressing his lips to Dean's neck again. "And I told you how this would go yesterday." Dean turned in his arms, and Sam met his eyes straight on. "There's nowhere you can fly that we can't find you. There's no one who can fly for you, or fight for you, or play for you that I can't win. In the end, it will be his neck twined with hers and you with me."

"So sure of yourself, then? So sure of me?" Dean's voice was cocky, but Sam knew him better than anyone, could hear the note of uncertainty even still.

"As sure as I am Paloaltoth's rider," Sam swore. "If you will have me, I am yours."

Dean's response needed no words, and they did not go in pursuit of breakfast until it was nearly supper time. Their dragons slept in the sun, and for the moment, all was well in Pern.


End file.
